Yes, You DO Have Time for Self-Care

So many of my clients are telling me that they are barely holding it together right now. That they don’t have time to cook a proper meal and they feel guilty when they take time out to shower.

I love talking about people’s time stories because it gives me a chance to reflect on my own time story and how I have dealt with it in my life.  

The first concepts of VIBE were born in the middle of the night about 5 years ago. At the time, I was still teaching middle school full time, commuting over an hour a day, brainstorming ideas at any possible free moment, and maintaining a household as a single mom with two kids and receiving no child support. 

I was dang tired.

And I had a harebrained idea to quit teaching at the end of the year and spend the whole summer building the business. I believed that I could design and launch a business in the 2 months of summer and by the time I received my last paycheck I would be already making a profit.

That’s how naive I was.

Turns out it actually takes time to build a business AND churn profit.

Quickly, I was out of time and income.

I began furiously job hunting and landed my dream job at the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice, the nonprofit arm of the University of San Diego’s Kroc School, my graduate school alma mater. I started right away and barely had a lapse in income. Thank God. And I was doing work that filled my cup, capitalized on all my strengths in program design and networking, and helped me develop skills not previously required as an educator.  

But now time was even more scarce than before.

I was dealing with a 2.5-3 hour daily commute. My work was demanding and often involved evening and sometimes weekend events and I definitely worked more than a 40 hour work week. I was still a single mom, juggling my girls between the amazing family support system that we have, and I was still working on the business on the side. It was a growing side hustle - offering professional development trainings for school sites, hosting intimate retreats for educators on weekends, and I had a growing list of coaching clients. I also joined a business community and we had weekly coaching sessions to support me in growing my business.

It was… A LOT. To say the least.

And guess what?

I still got a full night’s sleep. I still showered every day. I still exercised regularly. 

I still meditated almost daily. I still spent quality time with my girls and had happy hour with my bestie. I still read and listened to podcasts. And never missed a Sunday dinner with my mom and family.

And I did NOT feel frantic or like I couldn’t take care of my basic needs or the needs of my littles. 

I’m not going to lie and say it was pretty all the time. And I am not going to lie and say it was always peaches and cream. It wasn’t. And I had to get creative. Real creative. 

I meditated on the train during my commute.

I  connected with potential clients while I was driving (Hands-free! Don’t judge!).

I woke up early or stayed late at work to exercise.

I completely unplugged from everything on Saturdays to be present with my girls and nothing else.

My business took longer to develop and launch because of these circumstances, but I valued my emotional, mental and physical health more than my job and business.

My family came first. And I came first. Because it was becoming very clear to me that if I was not in the best shape of my life, then I would not be able to love and serve any one.

And I am stubborn and learn hard lessons slowly. There were way too many times in the past when I was NOT paying attention to my own health and sanity, denying my own heart’s desires and physical needs and I didn’t want to go there again. Ever.

And I haven’t. Every day I am learning to trust fully my intuition and inner guidance system. If it's telling me to rest, I rest. If it’s telling me to take a day off, I take a day off. If it’s telling me to spend quality time with a friend instead of polishing up those google slides, then I do it. 

Maybe that means everything goes slower for me, and I am okay with that. Because I know time is on my side. I trust time like I trust my intuition.

And I want the same for you. If any of this is resonating with you, and you are dreaming of the kind of life where you are first, and you give yourself permission to remember that you are human first, and you are tired of the time trap running your life, then let’s connect. I would be more than honored to share with you my tried and true practices that have helped me live into the life I am living now. I would love to save you the trials and tribulations I had to go through to figure my sh*t out and learn how to love myself and prioritize my needs. 

This is often one of the biggest areas that I support my clients in and I have seen tremendous growth and transformation in their lives because of our work together. I teach how to set boundaries and build a unique, custom toolkit that you can turn to time and again for the rest of your life, so you will always be able to dig yourself out of the shit pit when you fall in. Because it’s not about pretending that everything is going to be unicorns and rainbows - it's about teaching you how to pick yourself up, get yourself (re)grounded and centered, and look at the experiences as feedback on what’s working and what’s not. That way you can handle (gracefully and with ease) whatever comes your way.

That’s the magic of having a coach that is so focused on YOU = they have coached themselves out of a job.

So what do you say? Want to see if this is a fit for you? Book a call here and let’s see what kind of magic we can co-create!